traveling, unearthing the past

I've been on the road quite a bit over the past week: if I was getting my card punched, it would include two other states for the past few days.

Went to a family gathering last weekend, over in east GA. I find it so interesting and amusing to realize that both my parents were birthed up in the Augusta area, fairly close to the SC line, and ended up in the small town near the FL line where their parents settled and the two met, married and raised a family. So there are lots of cemeteries to visit up/over in the north east GA area - forebears on both sides.

We had a good time, even though, due to geography, I am not particularly connected to any of the cousins we saw last weekend. I was delighted that a daughter would take the time off from her work/life and devote the weekend to a road trip with me. Even though she did not know Anyone there, and I barely knew several from having been in the past couple of years, I enjoyed the events: raffling off assorted crafts, plants, jars of jam. Eating too much. A dessert bake-off, with dubious winners. (Why would anyone ask a bunch of men to be discerning judges when food is involved - especially desserts! They will eat Anything!) Short business meeting.

And what's a road trip without stopping at a roadside stand for a drippy wet bag of fresh, warm, salty boiled peanuts to hold in your lap, toss shells out the open window?

On Sunday there was a church service (which we conveniently missed due to being lead astray by GPS. (let that be a warning to you: don't toss your printed road maps!) And a gathering up on the hill above the lake, out in the woods. Old family cemetery located on a rise above where the old home place was near the river, now flooded by Army Corps of Engineers dam retaining Clarks' Hill resevior.  Sandwiches and strolling though the gravesites, pondering life. Enjoying the peace of the secluded site, feeling connections to the generations now gone, missing those now missing,

Thanks, daughter. It was a good, sweet weekend. I know you did it just for me (since you had no idea who any of those people were), and I am blessed by the time spent together.